Dispensable
by Katrussa
Summary: All for one is Fairy Tails noble principle. But when it comes to the worst, Natsu finds out that some are more dispensable than others. Gray/Natsu friendship, warning: character death kinda


This is my first fanfiction. I don't know why it's "Fairy Tail", I kinda liked some of the episodes I watched lately.

I'm not a native speaker, so there may be some oddities in the text. If you find any that you think could be related to that, please let me know.

I wish I had made this longer, but I was eager to finish it, to get started already.

Natsu ran. He felt Erza close to him on his left side, requipping in a hurry, a little off, already at her limits but moving forward with grim determination. When he looked he saw Jellal backing her up, although in bad shape still unwavering.

Lucy had pulled out Loki and Sagittarius at once, scraping together what was left of her magic power. But Natsu was glad to have her safe behind the line of battle.

Zeref had almost wiped them out. The black wizard hardly moved at all, effortlessly radiating incredible magic power. He sent wave after wave of hideous creatures, bolts of black lightning, choking and poisonous smoke. The smell was nauseating and spread like death itself, withering the grass, killing everything that got in the path of the deadly magic.

The fight had gone on for hours and more than half of the alliance was down, many of the weaker wizards dead. This was nothing like the fights they used to have. This was a crossroad, victory or destruction, nothing in between.

So Laxus, taking over for his fallen grandfather, had gathered the survivors of Fairy Tail and Lamia Scale for this last battle. He was at the head of the attack formation to throw himself against the enemy with his strongest magic while Wendy, Gajeel and Natsu prepared for their unison raid.

Erza and Jellal moved over to the left flank with Loki and Mirajane secured the right with Juvia and Lyon.

Everybody else from the two guilds who could still stand was right behind them to throw at the enemy what ever they had left.

They picked up speed, they ran, they dodged, they flew, they gathered all their magic while Zeref almost indifferently kept up his deadly attacks. And when they finally charged all at once on Laxus' signal, putting every ounce of strength they had left into the attack, it was as if the world around them exploded in blinding lightning and deafening riot when two waves of incredible magical power clashed and spread mayhem over the whole area where Fairy Tail used to be.

Bits of metal and wood, rock and ice scattered around the plateau until all that was left was ashes raining down. Then everything went silent.

When the smoke finally cleared Natsu was one of the first to come to. He raised his head and looked up. Everybody around him was down on their stomachs, broken and bleeding. The first thing on his mind was Lucy and if she was alright. But when he stood his eye found the shape of the black wizard, still standing in the same place, a mild expression of surprise on his face.

Natsu couldn't believe his eyes.

'Oh God, we failed', he thought, 'we fucking failed. And there's nothing left ...'

His knees gave and he had trouble not to go down again, feeling utterly defeated and hopeless.

But then he realized that Zeref made no attempt to attack. And while he hadn't been moving much before, he now seemed almost frozen in place and the deadly magic that was still passively radiating from him was gradually dying down.

Natsu slowly moved closer as something caught his attention. Behind Zeref in the distance he saw a lonely figure in a faintly familiar stance, trembling under enormous effort, concentrating magic power on the black wizard before him. And then bright blue magic circles flashed up around Zeref, whose eyes went wide with realization.

"Gray", Natsu said almost inaudibly.

Why hadn't he noticed before that the ice mage wasn't with them?

"Are you alright?" somebody asked behind him.

Natsu turned to see Lucy stumbling towards him. "I thought I'd lost you", she said fighting tears and fell into his arms.

Then she noticed that Zeref was still standing.

"Oh my God", she cried, "we're doomed. We're out of magic and he ..."

"Gray", said Natsu. Just that one word.

Erza came up to them leaning on Jellal, while Romeo was looking after Wendy. Surprisingly everybody seemed to have survived, although in bad shape.

Levy had found Gajeel buried beneath piles of rubble but not as badly wounded as Laxus, who Mirajane tried to bring back to consciousness.

"What's he doing?" Erza asked pointing at Gray in the distance.

"Iced Shell", Jellal explained, "a sealing ice spell that only two wizards ever mastered.

"But ..." Lucy started.

"HE'S GONNA DIE!"

Natsu who had known all along but hadn't been able to put two and two together finally snapped out of it and without further thought ran shouting towards his old friend: "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, DROOPY EYES? STOP THE CRAP ..." then he broke off bouncing back from an invisible wall.

"What the ..."

"Runes", said Laxus still on the floor, supported by his girlfriend, "I've made Fried take precautions not to disturb the spell."

"You did WHAT?" Natsu stared in disbelief.

"Look", Erza cried, "Zeref is freezing over."

All eyes turned to the black wizard who was almost panicking, stuck in place, unable to see his opponent behind him and slowly being covered with layers of unmeltable ice.

"STOP IT", Natsu yelled, pounding his hands against the wall, "STOP IT, GRAY! YOU PROMISED!"

Erza and Lucy joined him, but were both cut off from reaching the ice mage by the same runes.

"STOP IT, GRAY" Erza turned back to Laxus, raging mad. "What have you done?"

Laxus held her gaze and said: "It was the back-up plan, if we failed. He was fine with it."

"He was FINE with it?" Lucy spat. "You ASKED him?"

Mirajane came to her boyfriend's aid.

"If we couldn't win against Zeref, the only other option was sealing him. You all know that!"

A strangled cry came from the black wizard and made everybody turn to look. The ice had reached his hips already and was steadily rising.

"Where's Fried?" Natsu demanded to know, "take those freaking runes down. NOW. ... FRIED!"

"He's dead", Laxus said. "He was already dying when he drew them."

"LEVY!"

"She can't do anything. Those runes will fall as soon as Zeref is securely sealed."

"You thought about everything, haven't you?" Lucy said not as a question but as an accusation.

"There's nothing you can do anymore", Mirajane said choking on tears, "we can only wait and watch."

Not knowing what to feel Natsu put his hands on the invisible wall.

"We always said we'd die all together. Everyone is needed, everyone is important!" Erza cried.

'But it's not true', thought Natsu, 'we said it, but it's not true.'

He felt Lucys hand on his back.

It just wasn't true. Not anymore. They had split up into couples, the old team-mates, the whole guild one by one. He had Lucy and Erza was with Jellal, Laxus with Mirajane. Oddly enough even Gajeel and Levy had fallen in love eventually. Wendy had started dating little Romeo and Juvia, so deeply in love with Gray once, had found her true love in the other ice mage, Lyon.

"He has no one", Natsu said more to himself than to anybody else.

Gray had nobody he meant the world to. He was nobody's most important person. They fucking hadn't even noticed he wasn't there.

And then the cruel word came to Natsus mind. 'Dispensable', yeah, that was it. Gray had become dispensable, because the guild didn't care for everyone anymore. Not as it used to.

Natsu ground his teeth. How could he not have noticed? How could even he and Erza not have noticed that they had left their closest friend behind?

The pale figure in the distance was shaking, and slowly sinking to the ground on one knee as if the strain was getting too much. He looked so frail. Was he dissolving already?

Zeref was now covered in ice up to his shoulders. He opened and shut his mouth silently like a fish on dry land.

"Gray", Natsu only whispered and leant his forehead against the rune-wall.

Little by little his friend's body broke up into tiny snow crystals flying towards Zeref's stilled figure and joining the eternal ice to form an unbreakable shell.

A smile ghosted over the ice mage's face, or was it just his imagination?

Natsu felt hot tears running down his cheeks as the translucent body finally dissolved into nothingness sealing away the black wizard forever.

Then it was over.

"Gray."

Thank you for reading. Leave a review please if you think it's worth being commented on (in favour or against).


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